


i like that you're broken, broken like me (maybe that makes me a fool)

by Blue_Rive



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Huddling For Warmth, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Season 4 Spoilers, and a bit of crack because what do you take me for, and mayhaps??? to lovers??, catra's default mode after being captured is to be annoying as possible, glimmer may or may not have dropped kyle off a cliff, someone who actually cares about fanfiction genres?, the Very Original fanfiction concept of Glimmer and Catra being stuck together on Horde Prime's ship, the glitra can also be read as platonic, there is one (1) swear, they become friends a little quicker then i think they will in canon bc i wanted to write fluff, trying to keep it kinda canon compliant, weird language worldbuilding that i don't explain in full
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 07:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Rive/pseuds/Blue_Rive
Summary: Glimmer and Catra are both alone. No friends, no clever plans to get out, nothing and no one. That is, except for each other.
Relationships: Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra), Catra/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 207





	i like that you're broken, broken like me (maybe that makes me a fool)

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song 'broken' by lovelytheband, which is also the theme for this fic!
> 
> listen i didn't ship this but my otp is gren/runaan so i kinda have a thing for friends-through-the-trauma-if-being-imprisoned

“Stay in here to await further orders,” Horde Prime commands, and the door to the cell slides shut in a clean, mechanical motion, leaving the room completely dark.

_ Okay. This is bad. This is really, really, bad. But we can figure this out! _

...We. Glimmer was thinking of Bow and Adora, expecting them to be by her side, like always. But they weren’t here. And they hadn’t been the kind of team they used to be for a while, anyway. All she had was…

She lit up her hand, trying to shine some light in the dark cell. Lit up by the purple glow was Catra, curled in the corner of the room and digging into the wall with her claws. She flinched away from the light, then seemed to take a few breaths, steadying herself. 

“Hey, Sparkles,” Catra purrs, and it almost sounds real. Like they’re on some battlefield, Glimmer determined and saying something about the Rebellion and friendship and loyalty, Catra the antagonist, sneering some taunt with a laugh before jumping away, leaving whatever trap she’d come up with to be sprung and going to fight She-Ra. 

Glimmer would prefer that. She likes fighting, and it’s less  _ confusing  _ (and, yeah, she’ll admit, less scary) than this mess. Superweapons and holograms and whatever this new thing was. Hordak 2: Electric Boogaloo? 

She’s a warrior, not a problem-solver, not a commander, not a queen. She’s just a  _ kid,  _ really. Sixteen isn’t mature, no matter how much she pretends it is.  _ How old is Catra?  _ she catches herself wondering. 

“Hey,” Glimmer responds. She wants to yell, lash out at Catra, but she’s just… tired. Really, really tired.

Catra’s in a crouch, like she’s debating springing at Glimmer. Glimmer brings her hand up, letting it glow brighter. A  _ just try it.  _

Catra hisses and backs down a bit. “Thanks for getting us stuck here, Princess.” 

“I-  _ what?”  _ Glimmer’s not confused- of course Catra would blame her- but she is angry. Catra’s deciding to yell at her, instead of Light Hope, or… “You’re the one who’s been fighting for this since day one.”

_ “Hordak’s  _ the one who wanted this!”  _ And look what happened to him,  _ goes unsaid.  _ We’re trying to work with Horde Prime, if only to survive. Hordak was never really anything but loyal, but that didn’t change anything. ...We’re screwed, aren’t we?  _

“And you’re the one who activated the superweapon!” Catra continues. “In which reality is a superweapon a good idea?”

“If the Horde could have used it, they’d have activated and used it in a second,” Glimmer snaps back. 

“Doing what the Horde would.” Catra leans back against the white metal wall of the cell, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re the good guys here?”

_ Uh, yeah,  _ Glimmer wants to say, but what really makes them the good guys? A brighter, sparklier color scheme? She’d been  _ working  _ with the Horde, Shadow Weaver and Double Trouble. (And Scorpia. Did Scorpia count?) And the Horde soldiers she and Scorpia had run into… she couldn’t remember their names, but one looked sickenly like one she’d dropped off a cliff. The armor made it easier, to not see them as people. And they’d  _ wanted  _ to leave. They’d  _ left. Adora  _ had left. The existence of She-Ra was proof enough that the Horde wasn’t all bad. 

And the Rebellion just… attacked them. Not killing, really, (not trying to, at least), but treating it like some  _ game,  _ saying ‘how many can you take out’ like they were just more bots. The Horde wasn’t the good guys, but neither were the Rebellion. 

“No,” Glimmer answers, and Catra frowns, surprised by her candidity. Glimmer feels a bit knocked off balance, and struggles to recover. “I mean, you are, though! You almost destroyed reality. You  _ killed my mom.”  _

“So did you,” Catra says. “I mean, the destroying reality bit. I don’t have a mom. What’s a mom?” 

Glimmer is  _ pretty  _ sure Catra is joking near the end, but also, Adora didn’t know what an avocado was, so the Horde just seems kind of weird in general. (How can someone not know what an  _ avocado  _ is. What kind of childhood has Catra  _ had.) _

She lets herself fall to the floor, curling up in the opposite corner as Catra. “I can’t deal with this now. I’m going to sleep. Don’t kill me in the night.” 

Catra laughs, broken and hard edged. Glimmer can’t remember Catra ever laughing out of pure happiness. Adora probably does. “Sleep. Good one, princess. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” 

“That might be sooner rather than later,” Glimmer points out. “Just try and get some rest.” She hurriedly adlibs “I don’t like the idea of you being awake and ready to kill me whenever,” because she’s telling  _ Catra, Catra of the Horde,  _ to sleep, like Bow did when she was drowning in paperwork and she did when Adora wouldn’t stop pacing long after midnight. 

Catra sighs and stretches out like a cat, pacing around in a circle and then lying down. Glimmer idly wonders how much cat Catra is, really, and what species she is. They’ve gotten muddled up enough that no one cares, but it might be interesting to know where she’s from, originally. Probably born in the Horde, except she’s not one of the lizard ones like so many appear to be. 

Glimmer wants to wait until Catra’s asleep, but that doesn’t happen. Despite how cold and hard the metal floor is, she keeps finding her eyelids drifting closed, until she’s asleep.

—-

_ Glimmer’s mother is turned around, wings unfurled. “Mom!” Glimmer yells, voice breaking. Queen Angella turns around- and dissipates into the purple that’s been taking over the reality. Glimmer takes a step back, brushing at tears, and knocks into Adora. “Adora- you’re okay!” She looks over the other’s face, checking for injuries, then sees something that makes her blood run cold. Adora’s eyes are solid green.  _

_ Growling, she takes Glimmer by the shoulders and shoves her into the broken, corrupted part of reality, and Glimmer is falling. Someone catches her eye- a Horde soldier, desperately clinging onto a piece of pipe. Glimmer makes her way over to them and grabs their arm. “Hang on,” she lies. “We’ll get out of this.”  _

_ The soldier silently pushes up their visor. Glimmer’s own face stares back at her.  _

Glimmer bolts upright with a gasp. At first she thinks her eyes are still closed, but then she realizes it’s just pitch black. She tries to summon light, but the sparkles fizzle and die.  _ Shoot!  _ The- The Heart of Eternia must have taken most of her magic out of her. She didn’t think she needed to recharge, anymore, but maybe it was just a less-often thing now? 

Heart still racing from the nightmare, and the darkness didn’t help. She’s  _ hungry  _ and she’s  _ cold  _ and she doesn’t like it. She feels all shaky and off balance, and her teeth won’t stop chattering. 

She’d been to cold places, of course, but the Whispering Woods- and, by extension, Bright Moon and the Fright Zone- were tropical. This was a stark contrast to that. It didn’t even feel like windy Sealineas, or the bright, crisp cold of the Kingdom of Snow. This was the cold of the endless vacuum of space. 

“Catra?” she calls out tentatively. A pair of wary yellow-and-blue eyes become visible, pupils wide and dilated against the darkness. It’s nice to be able to see her- in this dark, Glimmer can barely make out her hand in front of her face.

Catra’s shivering- or shaking. Glimmer can’t tell the difference, and either one’s not reassuring. “You alright?” 

Catra glances away. “Nightmare. And I’m cold.”

“Same here,” Glimmer says, and lets Catra believe she’s talking about the temperature.

They sit in silence for a minute or two, then Glimmer sighs. “This is dumb. You’re dumb. It’s cold, come here.” 

Catra tenses up, but then sighs, edging next to Glimmer and leaning into her shoulder. Glimmer is struck by how skinny Catra is, all sharp bones and coiled muscle. She shifts so they’re both more comfortable and takes off her cape, draping it over them. 

In the dark, it’s a little less weird, less like she’s cosying up to Force Captain Catra and more like she’s just with another kid, like when she and Bow used to make giant blanket piles and hide under them when they were younger. Glimmer can almost let herself be comfortable. 

—-

“Catra?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Why did you save me from Horde Prime? I’d have thought you’d want him to kill me.” 

A pause, enough to tell her Catra’s thinking of an excuse. “I didn’t want him to destroy Eternia. I live there, you know. I needed time to stall, and a reason for him to keep me alive. You still being around is an unfortunate side effect of that.”

Glimmer laughs. It’s starting to sound like Catra’s, broken and hollow inside like a cracked vase spilling water onto the floor. “I thought you were good at lying.”

Silence, then, almost angrily, “I just didn’t want to be alone again,  _ okay?” _

Glimmer moves a bit, so that Catra’s head is resting against her collarbone and they’re sort of curled up in each other. “I’m here.” It’s the sort of thing she would have said to Bow or Adora, except now the world’s flipped on its head and she’s saying it to Catra.

“If only I’d stuck me and Adora in a cell,” Catra half jokes, “then she might have actually done what she promised.” 

And now Catra’s being a jerk again, and the world is back to normal. “Don’t talk about Adora like that!”

“Oh, excuse me, how long have you known her? A year?”

“Well, at least I didn’t stab her!”

Catra pushes away from their weird little huddle, snapping her claws out.

“Oh, so that’s how it is.” Glimmer grins, a bit, getting into a fighting stance, and pretends she doesn’t miss the warmth. 

She’s the one who lunges out first, grabbing Catra’s arm and punching her in the gut with the other hand, sending her off balance and out of breath. She quickly recovers, though, and twists her arm out of Glimmer’s grasp. A broken yell and a lunge forward, but Glimmer ducks, getting in a hard kick to Catra’s knees. It sets them both off balance, and Catra grabs onto Glimmer’s shoulder for support, sending them both tumbling to the ground. This is what Catra’s good at, and she viciously growls and claws mercilessly at Glimmer’s unprotected stomach. Glimmer twists around and pushes back and up from the ground, brute-force untangling herself. Catra flips up too, and now she’s fighting dirty, trying to get Glimmer back down. 

Their routine is off, stumbling and jerky. Falling down just because Catra leaned on her was a dumb move, and Glimmer can’t get over it. They’re both shaky and tired- they definitely can’t deal with Horde Prime like this.

“Stop!” Glimmer calls, and Catra actually does for some reason. “We can’t fight right now. We’re both doing terrible. We don’t have any advantages here- the only way to get through this is to work together.” 

Catra considers this, then sheathes her claws. “Truce?” 

“Truce,” Glimmer agrees. 

There’s a moment of awkward silence, then Glimmer sighs and sits down, tugging her cape back on. Catra hesitates, then follows. They’re not quite in the messy tangle of limbs they were before- can’t be, when they’re still nursing injuries from each other- but they’re not on opposite sides of the room, either.

—-

No one’s come in yet, which is worrying. It has to have been a full day or two, and Glimmer doesn’t know how long they could go without food or water. 

Catra and her had given up sniping insults at each other. Catra was curled in Glimmer’s lap, and Glimmer was idly threading her fingers through their hair. “When was the last time you washed your hair? It’s a greasy mess.” ...Okay, so they’d  _ mostly  _ given up insulting each other.

“Look at you,” Catra retorts, grabbing onto Glimmer’s hair. “Your hair’s so fluffy. And it  _ literally  _ sparkles. All you need is a big glittery sign that says ‘I’m a Princess, please punch me in the face.’” 

“I’m gonna punch  _ you  _ in the face,” Glimmer retorts. 

Catra flops onto her back, smirking lazily. “Truce, remember?”

“I am  _ really  _ starting to regret saying that,” Glimmer mutters, but concedes. Fighting won’t get them anywhere right now, and she hates it.

Catra sighs, tugging Glimmer’s cape over her a little more. “Can’t you just teleport us out of here, Sparkles?” 

“You think I wouldn’t have already if I could?” Glimmer holds up her hand, trying to light it up. Nothing happens. Her eyes have mostly adjusted to the dark, but she hates feeling powerless like this. “I don’t even have my spell supplies. I lost them in the weird summoning laser beam thing.”  _ I’m useless, having to be defended or rescued by my friends while I sit here doing nothing.  _

“We shouldn’t escape, anyway,” Catra says. “Horde Prime’ll see this as a failure and destroy Eternia if we do. He’d kill everyone.”

“Wouldn’t have thought you’d care about that,” Glimmer says, pulling harder than she should at a tangle in Catra’s hair. 

Catra winces and extracts Glimmer’s hand. “I’m not that much of a heartless monster, you know. There’s people I care about. Not that any of them care about me, anymore.” 

“You know why I didn’t kill you when I could have?” Glimmer asks, tracing her finger across Catra’s headband. 

Catra’s eyes widen and she shakes her head, tensing up like what Glimmer says is the beginning of a threat.

“Scorpia told me not to hurt you,” Glimmer continues. “She still cares about you, despite everything.” 

Catra laughs hoarsely. “And I suppose this is the point where you say you do too? Do you plan to redeem me via the power of friendship?” 

Instead of answering, Glimmer averts her gaze to the far cell wall. “Remember when everything was okay, and normal?” 

“I could lick you and generally annoy the hell out of you again,” Catra offers with a sideways grin.

“I will pull out all your hair, kitty. Don’t test me.” She tugs on Catra’s hair to prove the point. 

“I’m going to move,” Catra says. “This is abuse.” 

She flops out of Glimmer’s lap, banging her head on the metal floor. “Ow. Nevermind. It’s cold.” She drags along Glimmer’s cape with her, leaving long rips along it, and pushes herself up to sitting. There’s a bit of shuffling around as they switch places. 

“When do you think they’ll give us food? Or light? Or, y’know, remember we exist?” Glimmer asks, idly trying to grab onto Catra’s hair to get her advantage back. 

Catra pushes it over her shoulder, out of Glimmer’s grasp. “Do they even know we need to eat? I’ve only seen Hordak eat food once, and it was him biting into a tiny orange like an apple.”

Glimmer giggles. “That’s an amazing mental image.”

“He didn’t even peel it. He looked so betrayed.” 

“If they don’t feed us,” Glimmer says more seriously, tamping down her laughter, “or at least give us water, we’ll probably die. It’d really suck to die because some alien intern forgets to look up how Etherians work.”

Catra glances around. “There’s probably a camera in here. Want to annoy the shit out of them until they come in here?” 

Glimmer grins. “Of course.”

—-

Catra leans in close to the camera, smirking. “ _ Heyyy,  _ Horde Prime, you little bitch-” 

Glimmer laughs, draping herself over Catra and fingergunning at the camera. She clears her throat. “Day three in alien prison, everyone still sucks. I am dying here, Horde Prime.  _ Dying.  _ Look at me. Being dead.” 

She flops over dramatically into Catra. “Tell Bow I love him.” 

_ If anyone’s actually listening,  _ Glimmer muses idly,  _ we’re screwed.  _ They’d guessed that no one actually cared after the first hour or so, and had thoroughly abandoned diplomacy, plus revealed a few secrets that Horde Prime probably shouldn’t know. 

“Hey. Hey, Horde Prime. Wanna know something? I’m bi.” 

Catra laughs. It’s not a  _ good  _ laugh, but it’s getting there. “Really, Glimmer? I didn’t know. It’s not like your hair literally looks like the bi flag, or anything.” 

Glimmer grins at her, then continues to make faces at the camera. “Sup, Youtube? It’s Princess- Queen Glimmer here from a weird alien spaceship. Over here is Catra, yeah, she’s kinda a jerk, and  _ wow,  _ she just flipped me off, look at that jerk move,  _ honestly,  _ watch your profanity. Here’s our cell, sorry, the lighting sucks because there are  _ literally  _ no lights. Here’s a blank wall… and another blank wall… and my  _ cape  _ that Catra  _ ripped,  _ thanks a lot-”

“You’re welcome,” Catra says. 

Glimmer shoves at her face. “Shut up, this is my video. Make sure to smash that like button and subscribe for more! Less than three!” 

Catra sits back on her haunches and frowns at Glimmer. “Less than three?” 

“It’s like…” Glimmer sketches the shape out in the air with her hands. “Like, a heart?” 

“I don’t think that’s how you pronounce it.” 

“How  _ do  _ you, then?” 

Catra throws up her hands. “You don’t  _ say  _ it out loud.” 

“We’re already being ridiculous. I get to say what I want.” 

There isn’t a warning before the door slides open and light spills into the room. Glimmer flinches back, squinting her eyes against the glare. There’s someone in the doorway- she untangles herself from Catra, getting into a battle stance. 

At first she thinks it’s Hordak, but as her vision adjusts, she realizes it’s probably just some other clone. It’s still disconcerting, though, especially with the knowledge that it  _ could  _ be him, and they wouldn’t be able to tell because they’d all be the same after Horde Prime’s brainwashing.

“Horde Prime has been listening to your conversation,” the clone says, and well,  _ that  _ wasn’t good. Catra jumps to her feet as well, claws out and ready to fight. 

“The…  _ odd  _ version of English you speak-” 

“What’s English?” Glimmer asks. “We’re speaking Eternian. The Horde’s dialect.” 

The clone apparently didn’t know how to parse that, and so continues- “made it difficult, but we have answered your request. Please be more orderly in the future.” 

He- they? It?- puts down some kind of tray, and then backs out of the door, shutting it neatly behind him and cutting off the only source of light. Again. 

Catra warily investigated the tray. Glimmer stuck behind her- they’d requested a lot of stuff, and who knew which ones Horde Prime thought they were being serious about. Or maybe it was some kind of veiled threat. 

Instead of looking worried, though, Catra’s eyes light up. “They got us food!”

Glimmer looks at the tray dubiously. “Are you…  _ sure  _ that’s food.” 

“What else would it be? I mean, they’re kinda a weird color, but other than that they’re basically the same as the ones we had in the Horde.” Before Glimmer can stop her, Catra picks up one of the bars and bites off a piece.

“Catra!” Glimmer yelps. “What if it’s poisoned?”

Catra laughs. “The  _ look  _ on your face, Sparkles! You’d think I was eating a raw mouse or something. These are actually decent- I think I might have found a new favorite.” 

Glimmer raises an eyebrow, but tries the water.  _ You can’t make water taste _ that  _ bad, right? _

There’s a suspicious metallic taste, and the water in general tastes stale, but it reminds Glimmer how thirsty she is, and she gulps down half the bowl (why was it in a bowl?) before she hands it off to Catra. 

Catra takes a sip, then puts it down. “We should probably ration it.” 

Glimmer nods. “Good idea. Who knows when they’ll come back.” She tentatively picks up a food bar. “I’m trusting you on these being okay, by the way.” 

The taste is… indescriptible. Glimmer decides to leave the rest to Catra. 

—-

The next time the door opens, it’s not  _ that  _ much later. Maybe three hours? A different clone is there, this time, but they don’t seem to have much distinction in how they act. 

“Horde Prime requests your presence,” he says tonelessly. “Do not make us handcuff you.” 

Glimmer gives a short nod and climbs to her feet, grabbing onto Catra’s hand and helping her up as well. 

Catra’s glancing around, ready to run. Glimmer squeezes her hand. “We can’t leave right now, or he’ll destroy Eternia,” she whispers. “But it is going to be okay.” 

Catra offers Glimmer a shaky smile. “Thanks, Princess. Glimmer, I mean.” 

They walk out hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment if you liked this!


End file.
